BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Uttarakhand Tarun Vijay asks government to wake up to the challenge posed by cyber threats as India has become the second largest victim of cyber attacks…

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aising the issue of cyber security in Parliament today (December 23,2015) during Zero Hour, Tarun Vijay said the threat to national security from cyber attacks is too serious and India has become the second largest victim of cyber attacks.

It is intriguing why have we not created a single nodal authority to tackle cyber security matters for today and for the future though the challenge is so grave that in the last five months alone, more than 50,000 cyber attacks have been reported. Nearly half of India’s Internet population is hit by cyber attacks, as reported by Norton. About 11.3 crore Indians were affected by online crimes.

This is a dreadful statistics for a country with huge young population and in which hundreds of thousands of smartphones are sold every few seconds and thousands of people mark their arrival on the Interweb. If we want Digital India to be successful, we have to take a lead and there should be a separate Ministry for Cyber Security in the country. Tarun Vijay’s demand received wide support cutting across party lines.

It is as important as Defence matters. We must take initiative in the world and India must be the first country to start the Cyber Security Ministry. And, certainly, all the Members of Parliament and the MLAs should be given training in cyber security issues. Mr. Vijay demanded that universities must be given special funds to start cyber security courses in universities and colleges.

He also said that that there should be a proper cyber lab in the country. India is the software capital of the world, but, still we don’t have a state-of-the-art cyber lab in the country. We also want that State-wide cyber courts be established and cyber awareness training be imparted on a periodic basis. Mr. Vijay while elaborating the dangerous situation prevailing in the country in the absence of proper cyber security awareness and mechanism said that we must mandate cyber audits across all industries similar to telecom and banking.

“Unless we have the cyber audits across all offices, and not just in telecom and banking, we will not be able to control and resist the cyber crimes and hacking. This has become a national security issue. The Third World War will be the Cyber War and Cyber war will be a blood-less war. India has to prepare for it. We also need to update and strengthen India’s cyber crime laws ,” he noted.